Cream tea!

When I first heard of cream tea I was confused. No one puts cream in their tea. I've tried it. It was gross (we were out of milk). Why was there such a fuss over something that was just plain gross? Well I had it wrong. Cream tea is a glorious event that involves a bit of tea but most importantly a scone with clotted cream and jam. The thing that really makes it is the clotted cream. It's made by a process of heating and cooling heavy (double) cream for hours until the cream has turned into a butter like consistency. It's amazing. I can't even explain it's glory. It's widely sold at shops in the refrigerated section and cream teas are available most places in England. My first experience was at a little tea shop in the Cotswolds. The scone was massive and warm and the clotted cream was life changing.

Unfortunately, clotted cream is not widely available in America.  When it is it's on the shelf.. I'm really leery of this.. Not just of this but all shelf stable dairy.. Plus it was super pricy. 

While I was dreaming about fresh clotted cream, I started wonder if I could make it. Turns out you need minimally processed cream. Since we have all these lovely laws preventing raw dairy and most cream is ULTRA pasteurized I realized it really wasn't an option. I started investigating mock recipes. I found one in a novel about baking which used cream cheese and one online that used marscapone.  Well I already had both of those on hand, but first I needed scones!!

I wanted proper british scones so I used Seasonal Berries' recipe and Happy Home Baking's instructions. 

You'll need: 

-350 g of self rising flour

-50 g sugar (it calls caster (super fine sugar) but I just used regular)

-65g chilled butter

-1 egg

-150 ml semi-skimmed (2%) milk

Combine the sugar and butter in a bowl (or food processor).  Cut the butter up into small pieces and add the the mix. Using your fingers (or food processor) rub butter into flour and sugar until a crumbly consistency starts to appear.  I tried to use my mixer to no avail. It's a bit like making a pie crust. In a separate bowl, crack the egg, scramble a bit and reserve one tbsp for later. Add the egg to the batter and combine. Then add milk. This will still be a bit crumbly on the bottom of the bowl. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead gently a few times. Then gently pat the dough into a rectangle until it's about 1'' thick. Cut in half and place halves on top of each other and repeat. Make sure to work the dough as little as possible as it will result in a better scone. 

And then do it again. 

Once this is about 3/4ths of an inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter/cup/cookie cutter to form scones. Push straight down and try not to twist.  

Work this like sugar cookies or biscuits. Remove excess and work back into a rectangle and repeat.

I managed to get 10 scones from this recipe. Place on a cookie sheet and use the remaining egg to glaze the tops of the scones. 

Bake at 400f for 10-12 minutes. 

Now onto the cream!! 

The first cream was the marscapone: 

-4 oz. marscapone 

-2 tbsp sugar

-1 tsp vanilla

-1 cup cream

Now here's the easy part. Just throw it all together in the mixer and let it combine. This has to chill for at least a few hours. I let mine sit over night. 

The next cream recipe came from Always the Baker, Never the Bride. 

Devonshire Cream: 

-3 oz cream cheese 

-2 tsp sugar

- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

-1/3 cup of cream 

-pinch of salt

Whip the cream cheese in a mixer. Once whipped add sugar, vanilla and salt. Gradually add cream. Continue to mix until combined. This also needs to be refrigerated. I found this one easier to eat right away.  

As far as flavor goes, I preferred the marscapone. However, it didn't really set. Even after refrigerating over night it was still runny (pictured below on the right). The cream cheese based cream still tasted too much like cream cheese to fool me. 

I suggest trying both to see which you prefer.

Serve your scones with cream and strawberry jam!! 

Just to make sure no one would be offended, I made sure to eat on half of my scones with cream first and the other half jam first.